Economist John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told NHJournal that the arguments being made by opponents of campus carry are already being refuted by the data.
“About a dozen states already have campus carry, and some have had it for decades. All of the claims about angry students shooting their professors or suicides in the dorms — they haven’t happened. There’s no evidence of any increase.”
Lott also argues the behavior of campus carry opponents shows they don’t believe it, either.
“It’s completely legal in New Hampshire to carry across the street from the university. How many of these people are afraid to walk off campus? To walk across the street? None of them.”
New Hampshire has one of the most permissive gun possession laws in the nation. It also has America’s lowest murder rate. That’s unlikely to change, with or without campus carry. . . .
According to a recent report on active shootings released by the FBI, armed citizens have stopped less than 5% of mass shootings, but Dr. John Lott with the Crime Prevention Research Center has crunched the numbers and found them to be massively underreported. In fact, as he details on today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co, his data shows almost half of all mass shootings in 2021 were ended by a “good guy with a gun.”
What accounts for the wide discrepancy in the FBI’s figures and Lott’s findings? According to the researcher, there are a couple of issues at play.
Two factors explain this discrepancy – one, misclassified shootings; and two, overlooked incidents. Regarding the former, the CPRC determined that the FBI reports had misclassified five shootings: In two incidents, the Bureau notes in its detailed write-up that citizens possessing valid firearms permits confronted the shooters and caused them to flee the scene. However, the FBI did not list these cases as being stopped by armed citizens because police later apprehended the attackers. In two other incidents, the FBI misidentified armed civilians as armed security personnel. Finally, the FBI failed to mention citizen engagement in one incident. . . .
“First and foremost, I am concerned with all of you, working in the Town Hall and the properties there,” Frey continued, gesturing at the stage of the Sandwich Middle High School auditorium, where town officials and Select Board members sat.
“If you so desired to carry a firearm, legally, and were licensed, I would agree with that,” he continued. “I think it’s a safety issue for you folks who are there every day, having to deal with the public and the chances that somebody might be emotionally or criminal or mentally bent, trying to cause some kind of a horrific scene. I think you should be able to protect yourselves or your fellow employees.”
“The unrestricted option of citizens or employees to exercise the legal, licensed right to defend themselves has been going on without incident for a very long time. You could argue it’s been 400 years in this town,” Frey said. “There are statistics that show in actual numbers that licensed-to-carry individuals have [fewer] infractions of the law across the spectrum of the law. Chapter 135 only serves to restrict the already heavily-regulated licensing program and its licensees. No criminals or emotionally-hellbent individuals will bother to consider the law, no matter who wrote it or how many votes it receives.”
The research that Frey is referencing, in his claim that licensed gun owners in the United States commit fewer crimes than the average American, is contested. Primarily, the claim that those with concealed carry weapons (CCW) permits commit fewer crimes than their counterparts was promoted by economist John R. Lott Jr., in his first book, “More Guns, Less Crime,” as well as in subsequent publications. This claim, among others—such as that assault weapons bans do not meaningfully reduce gun homicides or reduce crimes—are key features of his work. . . .
That’s the primary narrative of anti-liberty/gun types these days. Fortunately, Dr. John R. Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center has done the valid, replicable research on that issue, and Brown is indeed being misleading (politeness again). In fact, she’s lying and lying badly. But first, people like Brown get their stats by designating people up to 19 or 20 as “children,” and including gang shootouts and other intentional crimes.
In 2020—stats normally are years behind—for people under 18, there were 2443 vehicle deaths, and 2218 firearm related. In 2021, there were 2,668 vehicle related deaths and 2,519 gun deaths. Excluding justifiable, self-defense homicides by the police and citizens, the number drops by several hundred.
So, even if we are counting 17-year-old gang members as “children,” the White House’s claim is incorrect. In 2019 and 2020, more minors died from suffocation.
It’s even worse for Brown:
For those under 20, firearm deaths exceed vehicle deaths for 2020 and 2021 when you use the CDC firearm homicide data. When you use the FBI data, the vehicle deaths exceed the firearm deaths for 2019 and 2020, and likely 2021, though the FBI data isn’t available for that year. The bottom line is that about a third of the firearm deaths for those under 20 involve homicide, where the victims are 18 and 19 years old. Approximately 20% involve homicides for 15, 16, and 17-year-olds. These deaths are largely gang-related, and even banning guns is unlikely to stop drug gangs from obtaining guns to protect their extremely valuable drugs.
According to the FBI, suicides comprise about 40% of all gun deaths, and even without guns, there are plentiful ways to commit suicide. Using CDC numbers, in 2020, for those 19 and younger, removing suicides reduces gun deaths from 4253 to 2,960. Using FBI murder data, doing the same reduces it from 3,405 to 2,112. Lott concludes with this:
Democrats can’t accept their responsibility for increased violent crime in 2020 and 2021. They want to blame guns, and there’s no better way to do so than to keep claiming that guns are the number one killer of “children.”
Considering it’s entirely realistic to consider “children” people no older than 12, and “teenagers” from 13-17 because 18-year-olds are considered to be legal adults, the numbers are even worse–much worse–for Brown and those on her side. . . .
Amy Curtis, “What Is Going on With Colorado Democrats and Crime?,” Townhall, May 6, 2026.
Massie made the civil rights case directly on the House floor. He pointed out that families within racial and ethnic groups often share first names and surnames, and the NICS system has a documented history of false matches that disproportionately hit people who happen to share names with prohibited persons. Without data, he said, neither Congress nor gun owners can prove or fix the problem. He credited Dr. John Lott and the Crime Prevention Research Center for the research that backed up the bill. . . .
Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a significant drop in the homicide rate. It’s an unprecedented drop, and while many are claiming that it’s just a restoration to pre-COVID norms, that’s clearly not true. After all, the drop is more than the increase we saw starting in 2020.
So what gives?
Well, while the media might try to spin it as some approach or another being effective, the fact is that these are all localized, yet the drop is nationwide.
At American Rifleman, podcast guest John Lott has thoughts. [Long quote provided]
He’s got a point, as does the fact that this drop came after the Bruen decision ended “may issue” permitting throughout the nation.
Even if you don’t see the correlation as having any meaning at all–and sure, correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation–you have to notice something important. Causation should cause correlation, and if more guns mean more crime, the simple fact that it dropped and dropped so hard following both what Lott mentions above and what we’re seeing across the United States proves that the issue is not now, nor ever was, how many guns law-abiding citizens owned.
Podcast host Frank Miniter notes that we’ve seen a massive amount of gun buying over recent years, all while anti-gunners claim more guns mean more crime, yet we’re seeing the opposite. It’s just not materializing.
The least generous reading of what’s going on is that guns have no impact at all on crime. That’s the most conservative take one can reasonably get out of this, and yet, that’s not what we’re seeing reported.
And Lott has looked at a lot more data than I have. I have no doubt that actual prosecutions in DC are helping there, and if he’s confident that a faster turnaround time on permitting is having a positive effect, then I’m not going to question him. . . .
Tom Knighton, “About That Massive Drop in the Murder Rate…,” Bearing Arms, May 13, 2026.
Scheduled speakers include attorneys Cameron Atkinson, Kevin Wynosky, Jason Guida and Frank Soccoccio, plus attorney and Connecticut lawmaker Doug Dubitsky. Second Amendment Foundation attorney Bill Sack will also appear. Additionally, Massachusetts State Sen. Peter Durrant, Maine Rep. Rachel Henderson, and Massachusetts Rep. Jeff Turco are scheduled. Other speakers will include JR Hoell, Toby Leary, Joe LoPorto, Laura Whitcomb, Greg Wilkes, Michael O’Neil, and Dr. John Lott, founder and CEO at the Crime Prevention Research Center. Cam Edwards and Jared Yanis will be sending video messages. . . .
Thanks to the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC)—a research and education organization founded by economist and renowned expert on crime Dr. John Lott—we can add another important layer to understanding violent crime in America. According to data analyzed by the CPRC, murders occur overwhelmingly in dense urban areas, many of which have onerous anti-gun restrictions, and far less in suburban and rural areas where legal gun ownership tends to be more common.
“This research shows that murders in the U.S. are highly concentrated in tiny areas in the U.S. and that they are becoming even more concentrated in recent years,” said the report from Lott’s CPRC.
“The worst 1 percent of counties (the worst 31 counties) have 21 percent of the population and 42 percent of the murders. The worst 2 percent of counties (62 counties) contain 31 percent of the population and 56 percent of the murders. The worst 5 percent of counties contain 47 percent of the population and account for 73 percent of murders. But even within those counties, the murders are very heavily concentrated in small areas,” Lott wrote of the 2020 numbers.
The CPRC put the numbers into a colored map. This map continues to be talked about and shared on social media, as it clearly shows the worst areas in red. Indeed, the murder map in the report very closely mirrors the nation’s most anti-Second Amendment jurisdictions.
“Murder isn’t a nationwide problem,” Lott’s study said. “It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas and even in those counties murders are concentrated in small areas inside them, and any solution must reduce those murders.” . . .
The horrific unintended consequence of madmen targeting disarmed citizens in “gun-free zones” was pointed out in an April op-ed in the New Hampshire Union Leader. The piece, co-authored by economist and noted expert on crime Dr. John Lott and New Hampshire state Representative Samuel Farrington (R), points out, “[M]ass public shooters have repeatedly explained in their manifestos that they seek to attack ‘gun-free zones.’”
To drive this point home, the piece states, “It’s no accident that 93% of mass public shootings occur in gun free zones in which civilians are not allowed to carry firearms.”
The op-ed was written to defend HB1793, NRA-supported legislation in New Hampshire that would eliminate “gun-free zones” for the state’s public colleges and universities. Lott and Farrington write, “Opponents (of the bill) are repeating the same warnings made when the state adopted right-to-carry, later expanded it, and enacted Constitutional Carry. Each time, critics predicted disaster—and each time, they were wrong.”
The authors also refer to some of the specific claims made by opponents of the bill that are strikingly similar to, if not simply the same as, the arguments that have been made since the modern Right to Carry movement started in Florida.
Those who object to expanding the right to self-defense on campus in New Hampshire, notes the op-ed, raise the specter of college kids getting drunk and being negligent with their firearms—which is a similar argument people made when they opposed removing prohibitions on carrying firearms into restaurants where alcohol is served. . . .
Staff, “EXPAND SELF-DEFENSE? CUE THE HYSTERIA,” NRA-ILA, May 18, 2026.
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